There has been a tremendous re-energizing globally to explore and identify ways to finance the proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The international recognition that the SDGs need to go even further than the previous Millennium Development Goals has prompted discussion of how to get from billions to trillions of dollars to achieve sustainable and inclusive development.

On April 18 close to 300,000 people united under a warm sun on the National Mall in Washington, DC, for Global Citizen 2015 Earth Day, a momentous day-long mix of advocacy and entertainment, urging citizen action to help end extreme poverty by 2030 and stop climate change.

Musical acts alternated possession of the stage with a diverse cadre of global leaders making policy commitments and calling citizens to action throughout the eight-hour event. Superstars like Mary J. Blige, Usher, and the band No Doubt roused the massive crowd which spilled out on green grass around the iconic Washington Monument. More than 2 million people tuned into the live webcast on YouTube.

“2015 is the time for global action. You have the power, your generation can change, your generation can make a difference,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the crowd, sharing the stage at the end of the event with World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim and IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde.

​Lower oil prices are a boon for oil importers around the world. But how well are oil-producing countries adapting to the apparent end of a decades-long “commodity supercycle” and lower revenues? And what does this mean for the global economy?

World Bank economists provided insights on the situation in six developing regions at a webcast event April 15 ahead of the World Bank Group-IMF Spring Meetings. The discussion focused on the challenge of creating sustainable global growth in an environment of slowing growth.

World Bank Chief Economist Kaushik Basu said the global economy is growing at 2.9% and is “in a state of calm, but a slightly threatening kind of calm. … Just beneath the surface, there’s a lot happening, and that leads to some disquiet, concern – and the possibilities of a major turnaround and improvement.”

Did you know that about 3.7 million people worldwide died in 2012 from diseases related to ambient air pollution? That is nearly the population of the city of Los Angeles expiring every year from preventable causes.

When you combine death-by-smog with deaths related to exposure to dirty indoor air, contaminated land and unsafe water, the grand total of deaths from all pollution sources climbs to almost 9 million deaths each year worldwide. That’s more than 1 in 7 deaths and makes pollution deadlier than malnutrition.

This fact deserves to be better known, as there are ready solutions. Inaction is not an option.

​The global economy is growing, but a bout of New Year anxiety has taken hold, posing challenges to our global mission: boosting the prosperity of the bottom 40%, ending extreme poverty by 2030, and avoiding a climate meltdown.

Can the world end extreme poverty by 2030? Will it be able to avert the worst effects of climate change or stop Ebola? These challenges are among the biggest we face today. In 2014, the World Bank Group tapped its knowledge, finance, and influence to confront global problems.

1) Taking on economic growth

In the wake of the financial crisis, developing countries were the engine of the global economy. In 2014, they faced new risks: lower growth, less financing, and lower prices for their commodities. In January and again in June, the World Bank urged developing countries to get their houses in order. Countries need blueprints to maintain the kind of growth that helped cut extreme poverty nearly in half globally in the last couple of decades. With the financial crisis fading, now is the time for developing countries to strengthen their economies so they can keep reducing poverty, according to the twice-yearly Global Economic Prospects.

There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours.
​– Jean-Paul Sartre

When I got that quote by the French philosopher tattooed on my arm, I wasn’t thinking about world poverty. I wasn’t thinking about the environment or peace or conflict or starvation or social justice. In fact, aside from puzzling over which recycling bin my coffee cup goes in, I didn’t think about much outside of my own world. Like so many others, I have plenty of my own problems to worry about, let alone ending world poverty. It’s easy to get caught up in our own lives. That daily crush of details — getting to work on time or paying the bills — can swallow up years. But if everyone only focused on what’s happening in their own world, then nothing would ever get better.

The problem is set to intensify in the future, as the population grows, climate change affects how we produce our food and the natural resources that help feed the world are stretched even further. We aren’t feeding the world as well as we should be in 2014. How can we do better in the future, when the world will need to feed and nourish 9 billion people in 2050?

The idea of “Inclusive growth” and how to achieve it was talked about a lot in the days ahead of the 2014 World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings. Among the solutions on the table was a new initiative that could help unlock billions of dollars for infrastructure and improve the lives of many.

About 1.2 billion people live without electricity and 2.5 billion people don’t have toilets. Some 748 million people lack access to safe drinking water. The Global Infrastructure Facility (GIF) announced by World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim this week hopes to lower these numbers by developing a pipeline of economically viable and sustainable infrastructure projects that can attract financing.